A Whisper to the Living (Inspector Rostnikov Mysteries)

by Stuart M. Kaminsky

  The policeman with the artificial leg could not be gone. He was to complete the task. He was, if possible, to be the sixty-fourth sacrifice. Aleksandr planned to approach the washtub of a detective, lure him into the bushes with the excited promise of evidence accidentally uncovered, and then crush the man’s skull from behind with a skilled blow with the hidden hammer. He would do all this in broad daylight, probably on his lunch hour, this time leaving the bloody hammer next to the body, and return to work.

  As he now walked through the park looking for the policeman, he considered that the man might not be Number 64. Aleksandr had been counting the first two he had killed, the young man he had pushed from the window and the girl he had strangled and buried far from the park. Maybe he should do more than fill the board just to be sure.

  It was the girl who had started him on this path, given him the idea after she had kissed him twelve times in eighteen days and told him that she liked him. Then she had said her boyfriend had come back. Come back from where? No boyfriend had been mentioned. They were in the park. She was being kind and sincere. Aleksandr had strangled her with hands grown strong from honest, hard work. He had buried her and then sought out the boyfriend and pushed him from the window.

  Those two were the impetus Aleksandr needed to start the task, and now he had almost achieved the goal. Maybe he would be caught when he finished. It would not matter greatly. If they did not catch him, he might stop, but then again he might not. He might start a fresh 64. He wanted to win this game and then be recognized as the champion, the record holder, the one who stood in a steel cage at his trial imagining a gold medal around his neck.

  Aleksandr took the path he almost always took and went winding toward the street and a block of Stalin-era high-rise apartment buildings. Twilight was upon him. There were adult couples and trios and joggers. Few were alone in Bitsevsky Park as the hooded sun sank under gray clouds. Later there would be the drunks, the mad elderly, the occasional fool who had not heard of the Bitsevsky Park killer. He did not like being called “Maniac,” but he had little choice and, besides, it had a satisfying frightening echo to it.

  Stepping out onto the sidewalk, Aleksandr looked both ways at the light traffic and crossed in the middle of the street directly in front of his apartment building. He took out his key as he moved and opened the outer door to the cigarette smell that would never go away. He opened the inner door with the next key to what most considered the sickening-sweet odor of strong cleaning liquid. He did not find it distasteful.

  He did not wait for the unreliable elevator. He never did. He climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, strode to his apartment, opened the door, went in, and locked the door behind him. Then, eagerly, he moved to the small kitchen area, where he removed two slices of fresh lake trout from the newspaper in which they were wrapped. He put a pan on the larger of the two burners atop his stove and prepared the pan with a generous dollop of real butter. He kept the fire very low and, after washing the small potatoes he had brought home thoroughly, cut them into slices and carefully placed them around the rim of the large pan. Finally, he placed the two slices of fish in the pan and seasoned them with salt and pepper.

  He had almost forgotten the two dented cans of Norwegian salmon.

  Later, after he had eaten, Aleksandr allowed himself a small glass of Nitin wine, on sale last week at the Volga at a bargain. He was not particularly fond of the wine, but it held memories.

  After cleaning up the kitchen, Aleksandr took off his clothes and put on a pair of loose-fitting gray jogging shorts and an oversized red T-shirt. He moved to the sole window and sat down in his comfortable chair. A headache, which he had up to now refused to admit, made one last effort to burrow into him.

  It was then that he looked out the window and across the space between his building and the next. Sometimes he would see the old couple in the window, sometimes only one. They sometimes nodded to him and he nodded back. They sometimes had their heavy curtains completely draped closed. But not tonight. Tonight the curtains were open. Tonight seated in the window directly across from him was, not two nodding old pensioners, but the policeman with the artificial leg.

  The policeman with one leg had not been on the bench.

  On his way home from school, and a decidedly unpleasant experience resulting from a confrontation with two other students over the Russian invasion in Georgia, Yuri had looked for the policeman for about ten minutes before heading home.

  Now, Yuri opened the door of the apartment to the smell of shchi, cabbage soup, and tefteli, meatballs, and the sight of his grandfather sitting across the room in his personal chair. Yuri Michaelovich spent most of his time watching news and interview shows on television. He cursed and shook his head in disagreement with almost everything he witnessed on the screen. He even grew red in the face second-guessing soccer coaches and players when he occasionally watched a game.

  Young Yuri’s grandfather, lean, with shoulders sloped forward and wild mop of white hair bobbing, glanced up at Yuri, waved a hand, and turned his eyes back to the television.

  Yuri’s mother stepped out of the cupboard-size kitchen when she heard the door open and said, “You are on time today.”

  His grandfather rubbed his stubbled chin, contemplating the folly of all but himself and those of the past who ran the world as he had known it. The Communists had run a much bigger world with much greater efficiency.

  Young Yuri’s mother ladled food into two blue ceramic bowls in the kitchen and then stepped around her father and nodded toward the table.

  “Sit,” she said.

  Olga Platkov was thirty-five and very pretty. She had passed on her large brown eyes and curly dark hair to her son. Now, Yuri thought, putting down his backpack, she looks tired.

  Six mornings a week she got up before dawn, dressed, ate what was left over, and began her almost-two-hour train and bus trek to the Coca-Cola bottling plant. She had recently become a shift manager, which meant she got up even earlier and came home later.

  Yuri went around the blaring television to the bathroom, where he washed his hands, after which he went briefly into the bedroom he shared with his grandfather. There young Yuri removed the book he was reading and took it back into the living / dining room. He sat at the table in his usual seat. There were only three plates on the table, which meant his father had already left for the Volga Restaurant, where he worked behind the bar.

  “Father,” young Yuri’s mother said.

  Yuri’s grandfather held up a hand to silence her.

  “One minute,” he said.

  Yuri and his mother sat and each reached for a thick slice of dark bread.

  “I met a policeman in the park,” Yuri said. “He is looking for the Maniac.”

  “There is no Maniac,” Yuri’s grandfather shouted, rising from his chair and joining them at the table. “It is a rumor created by this new government working with capitalists.”

  Yuri’s grandfather had been a commissar before the fall of the Soviet Union. Yuri did not remember it, but he was often told by his grandfather that they had lived in a large apartment on Kalinin Street, a high-rise with an elevator. Young Yuri’s grandfather had been the Communist Party commissar for the entire street, a big job with a small office on the first floor of the building in which they lived. It had been his job to respond to political complaints and nonpolitical complaints ranging from the price of fish at the market to requests for annuities.

  “You know what we need?” he asked, reaching for the bread and butter and looking down at his soup.

  “Stalin,” said Yuri automatically.

  “Stalin” was the answer to almost every question Yuri’s grandfather posed.

  “Yes,” he said. “Stalin. Stalin was a Georgian, like us. Did you know that?”

  Yuri knew it well.

  “Stalin would have taken care of the problem,” said Yuri’s grandfather, starting to eat the thick soup before him.

  Yuri did not know what the probl
em was, but he nodded his understanding and agreement. His mother smiled at him and slowly began to eat.

  “There is no Maniac in the park,” his grandfather repeated more to himself than to his daughter and grandson.

  “The policeman has one leg,” Yuri said.

  “He is not a policeman. He is a molester of children. No one with one leg is allowed to be a policeman. Stay away from him.”

  Yuri knew better than to argue. They ate in silence to the ranting of voices from the television set. When the meal was over, Yuri’s grandfather rose once more, saying, “Policemen with one leg. Maniacs in the park. You read too many wild stories.”

  With that Yuri’s grandfather left the apartment to go downstairs and outside, where he could smoke two cigarettes. He had been told by doctors that he had to stop completely, but he had no intention of doing so. He was only sixty years old. Others he knew who smoked were older than he. Doctors since the fall of the Soviet Union told everyone they had to stop smoking.

  “There is a Maniac and there is a policeman,” Yuri said, helping to clear the table and put the leftovers in plastic containers. “And he is not a molester of children.”

  “I have heard these tales of a Maniac,” Yuri’s mother said, turning the volume of the television set down to a whisper. “I think there was even something on the news. Was that in our park?”

  “Yes,” said Yuri.

  “And your policeman with one leg is there to catch him?”

  “Yes.”

  Yuri had not mentioned the candy that the policeman had shared with him. He knew it would not be a good idea.

  “Solachkin is a jackass,” his grandfather said, bursting through the door. “A fool, a jackass, a … jackass.”

  Yuri welcomed his grandfather’s return. It interrupted the conversation with his mother, a conversation about the policeman that was beginning to make Yuri uncomfortable.

  “You know what that ti sleepoy, asleyp mudak, that impotent bastard, said?” Yuri’s grandfather said between his nearly closed teeth. “He believes in your Maniac? I told him that it was just a trick to divert the minds of the public from the invasion of Ossetia by Putin and his puppet Medvedev. When the police have wrung the last sweat of rumor from the streets they will find some fool to accuse of their make-believe murders and lock him away or even shoot him.”

  Yuri had an open book before him. As he was picking it up to retreat to the bedroom, his grandfather strode across the room, beating Yuri to the bedroom. Wherever his grandfather roosted, Yuri would go in the other room.

  Through the open door of the bedroom, Yuri heard something rattling and the voice of his grandfather saying, “Betrayed, betrayed by Putin. I am not afraid to say it. Betrayed. I thought KGB Putin would resurrect the Communist Party, but what has he done?”

  Yuri’s grandfather emerged with a small wooden box and a board tucked under his arm.

  Without a word, Yuri’s mother got up and touched her son’s cheek. She looked so tired. Yuri touched her hand and smiled.

  “You set up,” his grandfather said, placing the chessboard on the table.

  Olga Platkov moved across the room and through the door to her bedroom, closing the door behind her. Yuri opened the wooden box and placed the chess pieces in the center of each box.

  “You have white. You open,” his grandfather said. “You want tea?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I will heat the water. You get the tea.”

  The two prepared the tea side by side.

  “You have white,” Yuri’s grandfather said. “I have black.”

  It was the same thing he said before every one of their games of chess. He had said it since Yuri was five years old. The truth was that Yuri looked forward to these games, to chess with his grandfather, who ceased ranting as soon as the game began.

  “School is good?”

  “Yes,” said Yuri, reaching for the pawn directly in front of the King’s knight.

  In the six years they had been playing, Yuri had not won once. This did not seem to bother either him or his grandfather. Yuri knew he would soon start winning.

  He changed his mind and moved the knight over the line of pawns.

  “A new gambit,” his grandfather said, reaching into his shirt pocket to pull out a cigarette and put it between his teeth. He would not light it. He never did when he was inside the apartment. “Well, let us test your mettle.”

  Maybe this would be the game Yuri finally won.

  “Now for the reports,” said Paulinin to the couple at his table, the woman next to him, the man just beyond.

  The problem and the particular value of Paulinin’s reports was that they were meticulous and detailed, written with a dark, ultra-thin-point pen. There were thirty-two identical fine-point black gel pens in the drawer of his desk right next to the two small jars of pain pills. Paulinin always wrote in clear, small letters. He wanted no mistakes or distortions. When he finished each report, he carefully transferred his notes to the computer.

  Before beginning his report, he had turned off the CD of Beethoven’s Fidelio. It was Beethoven’s only opera and the only opera that the scientist really liked. There was an inevitable melancholy to the overture, an echo from the pit in the cell. Most of Paulinin’s guests appreciated the opera.

  He had already examined and written reports on five of the victims of the Bitsevsky Maniac and on the latest corpse, that of one Daniel Volkovich, which Inspector Iosef had sent him. Paulinin was not at all sure that the simple case required his special forensic skills. Oh, he was pleased that the son of the Chief Inspector thought highly enough of Paulinin’s skill to bring him this guest. However, the visitors were piling up. Six were in the refrigerator one flight up, and two were before him in the laboratory.

  He looked down at the quite pretty woman with her eyes closed and began, “Lena—”

  A lightbulb crackled. He began again.

  Before writing the reports on his own form and not that of the government, he spoke to both the tape recorder and the two corpses.

  “Lena Medivkin and Fedot Babinski were murdered by …”

  “… two different people,” said Iosef, who had received the report from Paulinin confirming what he had thought.

  Iosef and Akardy had remained in the musky gymnasium, neither sitting. Handcuffed, Ivan the Giant stood between the two policemen. Across from them stood Klaus Agrinkov, the manager, and at his side stood a bewildered middleweight with a completely smashed nose. A towel was draped over the shoulders of the middleweight, whose name was Osip. He had no idea what was going on. The only thought in his mind was of getting home and telling Maria that he had met Ivan Medivkin, who was as big as his myth.

  “Different people?” said Agrinkov.

  Ivan did not appear to have heard. His mind was focused on escape.

  “So our expert tells us,” said Iosef. “Both of the victims were beaten to death. However, the blows to Lena Medivkin were short, hard, much more powerful with a right hand than the left. And Fedot Babinski was killed by crushing straight punches to the face, neck, and stomach with a left hand, which suggests … ?”

  “Two assailants in the room,” said Agrinkov, nodding his head.

  “But not necessarily at the same time,” said Iosef. “Our laboratory has not yet fully established how far apart they were killed, but it appears the woman was killed first.”

  “Ivan,” said Iosef. “Both your wife and Babinski were dead when you entered the hotel room?”

  “Yes. Who killed Lena?”

  “We know Fedot Babinski killed your wife,” said Iosef. “What we do not know is who killed Fedot Babinski.”

  Knock at the door.

  Tyrone was close to calling Elena Timofeyeva. There were only a few more passages, bits of dialogue that needed work to restore them to the point at which they could be heard clearly. It was late, closing in on midnight. He had her office phone number and he had hacked into her unlisted home phone. She had not answered,
but at eight o’clock he left messages on the machines telling her that he was running late, very late, but he had good news. He would bring the tape and perhaps somehow she would show her gratitude.

  Knock at the door.

  He smiled. Elena the voluptuous policewoman had heard his message and could not wait for him to bring the good news.

  Tyrone had been moving slowly to the door, chewing on a caramel, which he could not resist and would certainly contribute to the destruction of his teeth.

  Knock at the door.

  Only when he was standing before the door did he wonder who besides the policewoman might be knocking at this hour. Had his mother come home a day early and forgotten her keys? Was PoPo Ivanovich here to report on some newly discovered treasure trove of information he had hacked into? No, it had to be the policewoman. Tyrone swallowed his caramel and ran his tongue over his teeth.

  Knock at the door. He opened it.

  Two men stepped forward. One was thin, not as thin as Tyrone, and wore a suit that fit him reasonably well. He was about fifty, with white hair and blue eyes. His teeth, Tyrone noted, were perfect and seemed to be his own as he spoke.

  “You know why we have come,” the man said.

  At his side was a considerably larger man wearing brown denim pants, a black T-shirt, and a smile Tyrone definitely did not like.

  Tyrone knew, but he said, “Tell me so that I make no mistake.”

  “The tape,” said the white-haired man.

  The man’s hands were folded in front of him. The larger man in the black T-shirt had his considerable hands at his sides.

  Tyrone considered asking, Which tape? but he appreciated the possible consequences of such a question.

  “I have given it to the police,” he said.

  “You restored it?” asked the white-haired man.

  “I did, at least most of it, but I paid no attention to what was being said.”

  The two men who had entered his life suddenly now looked at each other and considered.